When art attacks… the big red ball escaped from its moorings and rolled down a Toledo street.
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“We had a freak storm move through the city very quickly when we were preparing to take the installation down for the day”, Perschke told artnet News by email. Members of an impromptu “recovery team”, including museum staff, a waiter, and other passers-by, pursued the ball and quickly got ahold of it, according to The Toledo Blade.
And luckily for web surfers everywhere, one Instagram user caught the whole thing on camera! Some can be seen in a video sprinting after the ball as it turns the corner from Madison Avenue onto St. Clair Street. A street sign may have gotten bent out of shape in the mishap.
Featured as part of a Toledo Museum of Art exhibit titled the RedBall Project, the 15 foot-wide red sphere had been wedged between Roulet Jewelers and Ice Restaurant before a thunderstorm and strong winds knocked the ball loose, causing it to roll away. It will be at Boyd’s Retro Candy Store at 954 Phillips Ave. from 11 a.m. until 6 p.m. today. The show is meant to pose questions like “Is play just for kids?”
Brooklyn artist Kurt Perschke’s RedBall Project has been to more than 300 locations in 25 cities, but none had the performance art quality of Wednesday’s breakaway moment fueled by a gust of wind and caught on video.
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The RedBall Project, which has already visited cities from Chicago and Paris to Sydney and Taipei, is on an global tour. It’s a huge soft ball that doesn’t crush things.
